Marius Masalar is a composer and writer for media. He holds credentials from Berklee and Ryerson and occasionally puts them down to produce more music, writing, and carbon dioxide. His website is a nice place to visit.

Web development remains one of the areas in which the Mac app ecosystem shines brightest. As the technologies underpinning the internet continue to evolve, we’re thrilled to see eager developers providing new tools to take advantage of those technologies and simplify formerly arduous tasks. Like producing graphics code, for instance.

Last year, I reviewed PaintCode, an app that facilitates the creation of Objective-C interface graphics using natural graphic design tools. PixelCut has expanded their reach with the brand new WebCode, an app that offers the same tools geared toward the creation of code-based graphics for the web.

After the jump, let’s dig in to see if the tools are as useful for web design as they were for app development.

There’s nothing easy about app design. Despite Apple’s best efforts to make the tools for OSX and iOS development as intuitive as possible, anyone who has done it knows that there’s a lot more to creating a terrific user experience than simply using fancy graphics and assembling the code.

For one thing, the interaction between the visuals and the code is important to manage well so that the app doesn’t grow unnecessarily huge in size. PaintCode, a new app from PixelCut software, aims to ease this aspect of production by providing you with an environment for drawing interface elements that are instantly rendered into raw code — so you can have fine visuals without the bloat.

Though it serves a complicated niche, PaintCode could revolutionize the way developers handle in-app graphics in a way that has implications for all app enthusiasts, so we dive in to see how well it rises to the challenge.

Although there are tens of different solutions you can appeal to for handling your day-to-day GTD routine, the one corner of the market that has seen less attention is the student subset. Although workarounds can be accomplished with all the major task management systems out there, it’s clearly preferable to have a solution that is dedicated to managing your education specifically.

This is the void that iStudiez Pro aims to fill. Available on the iPhone since April of 2009, this powerful app has recently made its way to the Mac App Store, and following the recent 1.01 update we wanted to take a look and see how well it’s made the transition to the desktop!

Whether you’re a frequent business traveler or just a thrill-seeking nomad, we all know that venturing out into the world can be a complicated process.

In place of notebook pages taped to the fridge, Post-Its stuck to your monitor, and scrawled itinerary on a sturdy coffee-shop napkin, Outer Level offers you Knapsack. This all-in-one trip planning solution aims to de-clutter your preparation process and take the hassle out of planning for your next big (or small) adventure. We delve in to see if Knapsack delivers on its promise.

Happy birthday, OpenOffice. Believe it or not, it’s been ten years since the mighty “other” productivity suite—the open-source uncle of Microsoft’s ‘Monopoloffice’—began the slow fight for recognition. How far we’ve come.

Of course, it’s been slightly less than ten years for us Mac folks, but in any case the milestone merits a re-evaluation of this streamlined suite of apps, especially in light of Microsoft’s recent release of Office 2011 for OS X.

At the end of the day, the question has always been whether or not OpenOffice is able to sufficiently replace Microsoft Office. Has it reached this stage today? Read on to find out…